


Not Totally All Alone

by SecondFromTheRight



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, I mean, basically mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21646756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondFromTheRight/pseuds/SecondFromTheRight
Summary: Midge continued to stare at him blankly. “Shy Baldwin asked me to open for him. On tour.” She finally said with a blink.A smile flickered on Lenny’s face as he shook his head in disbelief. “That’s…that’s amazing!” he grinned at her.“It is,” she gave a small smile back. “It is. It’s the silver lining to being alone. All alone.” She pointed out, raising her eyebrows as she referenced their conversation at the bar earlier in the week, as well as his song tonight. The song, the performance that had crystallised who she was, and what her life was going to be like. What she had chosen. He’d summed it all up for her, defined who she was without even meaning to. He’d done that a number of times now, she was beginning to realise.Set 2x10.
Relationships: Lenny Bruce (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)/Miriam "Midge" Maisel
Kudos: 89





	Not Totally All Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the bulk of this last year and recently it's been a part of a bid of multiple mostly-finished works I'm trying to get completed. Also, obviously figure if I didn't post it before the new season, it's likely that I never would.
> 
> This is just a little thing focusing mostly on the role Lenny has unconsciously played in Midge's life. I wouldn't say it's that shippy? So I apologise for that. It's set within canon, I'll just say that. As much as I warmed to Joel last season, I just love Midge and Lenny.
> 
> It's my first fic for the fandom, first time I've written these characters and their world, so I'm a little nervous about that. A lot nervous, actually.

Midge stared at the wall with her head tilted, a thoughtful frown on her face and her handbag dangling from her folded arms. She heard the door open behind her but didn’t move from her place. “Do you think they’d paint the room pink if you requested it?” she asked as she heard Lenny come into the room.

“I’ll ask next time.” He said seriously, coming to stand at her side and stare at the white, plain walls of the dressing room.

“I’d never seen you sing before.” She offered, nudging her body closer to his.

Lenny frowned, drawing his brows together as if contemplating it. “It happens,” he shrugged. “So how’d I do? Think it was bland enough to be invited back so I may request a pink dressing room next time?” he turned his head to her, gesturing the room with a wave of his hand.

Turning towards him, she smiled. “You were wonderful,” she praised sincerely. He always was. “And still with that special Lenny quality – only you could make a point of playing well with others about being alone.”

His eyes dipped down and away. “I think that’s the only way I know how to do it,” he mused quietly before quickly refocusing himself. “Drink!” He announced, clapping his hands together.

“Lenny,” Midge stalled, waiting for him to face her again. He didn’t show who he was behind the curtain often, the vulnerability that was really there. Instead, he exaggerated it, drenched it in cynicism and bluntness to hide it all. Lenny Bruce was constantly starting fights, but was untouchable. That was how he was known. But she’d seen his Midge behind Mrs. Maisel more than once recently, and she couldn’t ignore that slight crack in the armour he’d just shown her once again. He was her friend, but maybe she hadn’t been enough of one to him. “I hadn’t noticed you’d taken your ring off.” She said with apology, staring down at his hand.

He hummed, his body softly snapping as he breathed a light laugh. “I couldn’t help but notice that you still wear yours.” He voiced, pointing a finger at her rings, squinting his non-judging judgement and deflecting it back to her.

She followed his attention, staring down the rings, as she momentarily allowed his avoidance. “I took them off…but then it seemed like we would be giving it another shot…” she explained in a thoughtful daze, tapping her wedding finger against her inner elbow, her arms still folded. “And then I was Mrs. Maisel again…” she frowned, remembering it all. Now, Mrs. Maisel wasn’t Joel’s wife. She was someone who used to be a wife, and wasn’t anymore, and now she realised, never would be again. “I’m engaged.” She said numbly.

“To your husband?” Lenny asked in confusion, his eyebrows lifting a little even in their furrowed state.

“No,” she looked up at him before continuing. “Benjamin.”

He widened his eyes, staring at her. “The doctor?” his whole body leaned towards her slightly as if falling before straightening again. “Congratulations.” He offered, tilting his head and staring at her like she was something entertaining to figure out.

Closing her eyes for a second, she shook her head back and forth. “Well, I mean, I’m not really yet. Exactly,” she rambled, opening her eyes and finally unfolding her arms as she gestured through her explanation. “I was waiting – we were waiting, for my father’s approval because…well, Joel never asked so I thought it would help my father be less mad at me, but this afternoon I made a decision that…” she stopped herself; Lenny stayed quiet, giving her the time or unsure what to say, she wasn’t sure. She could be a Lenny Bruce joke with how her life was turning out – maybe she should be. “Well, there won’t be an engagement,” she finally said. “Or a second wedding,” she added with a blink. “And I didn’t even think about it,” she explained as she met his eyes, connecting with someone who knew her. Someone who she could let down, maybe. Midge wasn’t sure what she was looking for from him, validation or disappointment, but she was looking for something. “I didn’t even think about it so much that I didn’t even realise what it meant until my father reminded me I was getting engaged.” She stared at him, her throat closing slightly as the starts of tears stung her eyes.

“I’m trying to keep up.” He said slowly, apologising with a frown, looking so seriously at her.

She swallowed it back and smiled it away. “The tour I did recently…” she started again with a raise of her eyebrows. She nodded. “It was awful. Night to night, second to second, definitely no pink dressing rooms.” She condemned with a single shake of her head. “Still, I was so…excited, so immersed in the whole experience, what my life could be, that I forgot about my friend’s baby shower that I was hosting. Just forgot,” she shrugged as she continued to show herself, the choices she had made and was still making. “And they had it without me while I was away on tour forgetting.”

His frown deepened as he inclined his head towards her. “The friend who’s since had the baby and the regaling of got you kicked off stage.” He summed up, referencing their previous conversation.

She nodded, slightly warmed that he was keeping up with her craziness. “Yes, that one.”

“So she forgave you.” He said, stopping her momentum.

Midge stared up at him. “What?”

“For forgetting the shower?” he continued with a raise of his eyebrows, her now the one unable to keep up. “You’ve seen her since and all is well? So she forgave you.” He repeated with a shrug, dismissing all her crazy in a sentence.

She continued to stare at him blankly. “Shy Baldwin asked me to open for him. On tour.” She finally said with a blink.

A smile flickered on Lenny’s face as he shook his head in disbelief. “That’s…that’s amazing!” he grinned at her.

“It is,” she gave a small smile back. “It is. It’s the silver lining to being alone. All alone.” She pointed out, raising her eyebrows as she referenced their conversation at the bar earlier in the week, as well as his song tonight. The song, the performance that had crystallised who she was, and what her life was going to be like. What she had chosen. He’d summed it all up for her, defined who she was without even meaning to. He’d done that a number of times now, she was beginning to realise.

The smile quickly left, a concerned frown taking its place. “Hey, that’s not going to be you.” He tried to dismiss as he looked down at her.

“It is,” she argued easily, somehow getting used to the idea already. “You’re right, Lenny. To give so much of yourself to something…you have to lose other things. Things that matter, but…”

“Not as much?” he questioned quietly, seemingly just as unsure about the answer as she was, as she had been.

Instead of answering what he said, for either one of them, she shifted slightly. “Are you still wondering if it’s worth it?” she asked, once again bringing their previous bar conversation into it.

Lenny paused, his brows furrowed deep now as he actually thought about her question, apparently preparing to give her an entirely serious and genuine answer. “I don’t know if it’s worth it, but I love it,” he finally said with a shrug like it was settled. “And I don’t know how to not live it.” He added and Midge understood. She’d made the choice. The option of not going on that tour didn’t even exist, not for a second. Not when Shy himself had encouraged her to think about it, not the thought of how grumpy Susie could be through the tour, not even enough to remember her almost second wedding and her almost second husband. The only thing she’d remembered among it all was coming here tonight. She hoped Lenny was as accepting of what he seemed to realise for himself.

“Well you’ll always have a friend who will stand outside in case you want to leave,” she promised, taking some pride in the fact that she hadn’t forgotten everything and everyone that meant something to her in her celebration. “Except for the next 6 months when I won’t be here.” She added flatly.

He tilted his head at her. “Your commitment is one of the things I enjoy most about you,” he deadpanned but his face fell when he realised what he’d said – and how much the comment had changed definition and consequence in the last 5 minutes. “Shit, Midge.” He apologised.

“It’s fine,” she dismissed with a wave of her gloved hand as she tried not to take too much attention in the fact that Lenny Bruce looked uncomfortable about a joke he’d made, and she was the one to drive such a once in a lifetime experience. With a bite of her smile, she thought about the others. “Maybe when I get back I’ll still have a friend who forgives me forgetting her shower and parents who support me no matter how much I make my father communicate through scowls alone or my mother take to bed in the middle of the day or generally upend their lives.”

“So not totally all alone.” He pointed out gently, leaning his body slowly towards her until he just nudged her.

Midge stared at him. “Thank you.”

He frowned, straightening again in confusion. “For the starter gig at The Gaslight?” he guessed. “You would have made it anyway. Though maybe not as Amanda Gleeson.” His frown deepened in distaste.

“For so much more.” She smiled over his attempt to distance.

His eyes narrowed at the mysterious comment. “Tits up,” he remembered another mystery. “Are you going to leave me with that great closer?”

“It’s something Susie and I say before I go on stage. Our good luck traditional,” Midge explained. “Tits up,” she repeated as she straightened her shoulders in a showcase. “Showtime. Time to put on your smile, best foot forward. Let them see your best self.” She continued the list.

He pursed his lips in thought before turning into a smile. That quiet one that also reached his eyes that he wouldn’t allow to focus on her face for too long, too close to feeling. “Well thank you for including me in your tradition. That’s very nice of you.” He said kindly with a bow of his head.

Happy to push him a little more and working her way through all the thoughts in her head that screamed Lenny Bruce at her, she told him. “I saw you once, perform,” she revealed, watching him. “Before I was a mother, before I was a wife. Joel and I were dating and he’d take me on dates to clubs… And we saw you, he wanted me to see you.”

He gave a single shake of his head. “I didn’t know.” Was all he offered.

“Front row table and everything,” she boasted. “You were brilliant. You made me laugh.”

“Well you know, that is the objective.” Lenny deflected with a few slow bobs of his head, his eyes deliberately away from her.

“And you made me look around the room to see if everybody else was laughing,” she continued in something of a daze, thoughts continuing. “You made me… me.” She realised with a startle.

“Midge –“ his voice sounded but she cut him off.

With wide eyes, she stared up at him again, half-excited, half-terrified. “I brought Benjamin to see your set because it was the first place I thought that I wanted…to experience. A place that would show me…somehow. And I watched him watching you,” she explained, remembering the moment. “If he hadn’t found you simply fucking delightful…there wouldn’t have been a second date, even a second drink. No second wedding,” she concluded. Her introduction to comedy, her first night on stage without meaning to be on stage and what followed, her second night on stage when she had meant to be on stage, and what followed, her decision to try it properly, Susie’s first claim as her manager, her first night as Mrs. Maisel. Needing to know if he loved it and knowing that was going to be enough to tip her over the edge into comedienne. Needing her potential date to have a taste in men, in humour and experience and life that was summed up by Lenny Bruce… And now tonight. All alone. Tonight, making her realise what her whole damn life was going to be like. He’d…defined her, this part of her, of her life. This part that was quickly directing all the other parts of her life. Or, he’d at least been present in the moments, over and over. Unbelievable. She had to go and see Joel. She had to see someone else who had been in just as many pivotal moments for her, sharing a couple of the same ones as Lenny, but that loved her. She needed the assurance, the familiarity and acceptance from Joel; it had to be Joel. She stepped back, blinking it away before addressing Lenny again. “I’ll be gone within two weeks, so make sure you chase me down the next couple days.”

“I will do just that,” he gave a little salute, tapping a single finger against his temple then aiming it in her direction. “I’ll bring the umbrella.”

Midge smiled. Lenny Bruce, cynical and offensive, was ridiculously sweet. “That’s okay,” she gripped her purse as she reached up and kissed him on the cheek before turning and heading for the door. “Rain leads us in the right direction sometimes.” She said over her shoulder.

He turned and stared at her. “To replace the tits up? Have you always done this? I haven’t noticed but it’s very effective.” He complimented with a thoughtful shrug.

“Always leave them wanting more.” She proposed.

She saw his face drop in stunned realisation before she walked out the doorway. “Oh that’s what we’re supposed to be doing?” he called, followed with a click of his tongue.

Midge smiled to herself as she walked through the corridors of the studio. All alone, but not totally all alone.

She could do this. She couldn't go back to jello-molds - Lenny had known that too, but she could do what came next. She was going to. Alone, but not totally alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to anybody who read this. Like I said, it was my first The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel fic so I hope it was okay. I'm super excited for the new season!
> 
> <https://secondfromtheright.tumblr.com/>


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